Description

Surrounded by towering mountains, Glencoe is one of Scotland's most spectacular places and provides outstanding opportunities for walking and climbing. Learn all about Glencoe's remarkable history, landscape and wildlife in the National Trust for Scotland's visitor centre.

The new centre aims to tell the story of Glencoe from its beginnings as a volcano, through its shaping by the ice age, to the coming of man and the history of our inhabitation of this most spectacular glen.

Many thousands of visitors stop just to look at the glorious views all around and take in the atmosphere of Glencoe, and the addition of the new visitor centre should encourage even more people to do so.

The infamous massacre of 1692 took place at many sites throughout the glen, but one of the main locations is just a short walk from the Trust's eco-friendly Visitor Centre.

Geologically, the Glencoe hills are significant as an example of a volcano collapsing in on itself during a series of violent eruptions. This is also an area of international botanical importance, particularly for the woodlands and Arctic alpine flora.

GLENCOE MASSACRE:
The Glencoe Massacre was an order from the Master of Stair, Joint-Secretary of State for Scotland for the new King, William of Orange.

Thirty-eight MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by the Campbells, the guests who had accepted their hospitality, on the grounds that the MacDonalds had been slow to pledge their allegiance.

The events leading up to The Glencoe Massacre are important to the understanding of the massacre itself. Besides being ineffectual, the massacre proved to be a monumental blunder and public opinion was such that the Government was forced to hold an inquest into the affair.

The Glencoe Massacre had been organised by the new King William's minister for Scotland, John Dalrymple. The government was condemned for the Massacre, Dalrymple was to be the scapegoat, and he resigned.

It has been debated whether the massacre was caused by William's desire to make an example of some Jacobites, or by a long-standing clan rivalry, or by the political manoeuvring of Dalrymple himself.